'A voice of authority.' Longtime public radio news director, morning host Bradley dies at 83

Rich Bradley, who shepherded public radio in the Springfield area in its early days as the longtime news director and host of the local "Morning Edition," died in Springfield on July 3.

He was 83.

After graduating from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and stints at radio stations in Herrin, Carbondale and Danville, Bradley came to Springfield to work at WCVS-AM in 1965. He joined WSSR-FM at then-Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois Springfield, several months before the station went on the air on Jan. 3, 1975, staying as news director and host of "State Week in Review" until his retirement in 2009.

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The station, now with the call letters WUIS-FM (91.9) and branded as NPR Illinois, has had just two news directors: Bradley and his successor, Sean Crawford.

Bradley was known in national circles, helping form the Public Media Journalists Association and was a recipient of the PMJA's national award, whose past recipients have included public radio stalwarts Ira Glass ("This American Life"), Susan Stamberg and Linda Wertheimer.

"Rich was completely the opposite of what I assumed public radio people would be like," said Crawford, who came to Springfield as an SSU student in 1994 after working in commercial radio in southern Illinois and the Joliet area. "He was much more easy-going.

"He meant a lot to a lot of people."

Bradley hired Bill Wheelhouse as the statehouse bureau chief in 1995. but Wheelhouse knew Bradley from even further back. Wheelhouse started at an NPR station in Macomb in 1987 and got to know Bradley through the Illinois Public Radio network, a consortium of stations working together and sharing news from around the state, which Bradley also had a hand in starting.

"Rich was a comforting voice and a voice of authority for public radio listeners," said Wheelhouse, who also served as the station's general manager from 2005 to 2016, when he retired. "In person, he was pretty much the eastern Illinois farm boy that he was but, on the air, he just sounded a lot smoother and sophisticated."

Wheelhouse said Bradley had an eye and an ear for the technical end of things, and, as newsrooms were becoming computerized, he was always looking for the latest kinds of technology and gadgets to help reporters.

"He just had an ear for quality sound," Wheelhouse marveled. "He would call you up--he wouldn't tell you the problem--but he would say, 'Just adjust that little switch on the side there. Just move that a notch and that will help your interview quality when you're out in the field.'"

Bradley told former State Journal-Register reporter Brian Mackey about covering several presidential visits and campaigns, including President Richard Nixon’s trip to Springfield in which he signed off on the Lincoln Home coming under the National Park Service.

Bradley was on the air live when U.S. Senator Barack Obama, D-Illinois, announced his presidential bid outside the Old State Capitol in 2007. He covered a visit by a little-known Georgia governor and peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter, to downtown Springfield in 1975, and he covered the sitting president Carter beat, Gerald Ford, when he dedicated a cornerstone at the renovated Lincoln Home.

Bradley interviewed Otto Kerner, the former Illinois governor, shortly after his release from prison on mail fraud charges. Kerner, who was forced to step down as a federal appellate judge, had terminal cancer and would die in 1976.

It wouldn't be the last Illinois scandal involving a state governor Bradley would cover. The bank fraud and perjury case of Dan Walker, the bribes-for-licenses scandal of George Ryan and the impeachment and indictment of Rod Blagojevich all followed.

Bradley told the SJ-R's Chris Dettro in 2009 that his goal was "to focus attention on the station. I've had a lot of help over the years. We're like cogs in a well-oiled machine."

Crawford said Bradley gave young reporters free rein to pursue stories.

"He wouldn't be a micromanager about things," Crawford recalled. "That was something I appreciated quite a bit because he was the type of guy, as a younger reporter especially, you want to feel like you're doing things right and I always felt like Rich was going to let me know if I didn't do things right, but for the most part, he was encouraging. He'd help you when you needed it, but for the most part he let you do your job."

Bradley, Crawford said, was "very open to getting women into positions of management and giving them a lot of leeway to do their jobs." Peggy Boyer Long served as the statehouse bureau chief two different times. The late Mary Frances Fagan also held that post, he pointed out.

Bradley is survived by his wife, Laura Bartman of Springfield, and five sons.

A celebration of life is being planned. An online obituary noted that memorial contributions could be made in Bradley's name to the Animal Protective League, the Illinois Humane Society or the Land of Lincoln Honor Flight.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Longtime WUIS-FM news director Rich Bradley dies at 83